Heritage Foundation analyst who questioned Hispanic intelligence and wrote for nationalist website resigns

Jason Richwine, a Heritage Foundation analyst and the co-author of a study that measured the cost of an immigration reform bill, resigned from the conservative public policy organization after news organizations reported he had authored a dissertation asserting that Hispanics had lower IQs than whites and wrote for a website founded by white nationalists.

The news of Richwine's resignation was first reported by David Weigel of Slate Magazine.

Richwine came under scrutiny this week after he co-authored a study with Heritage senior research fellow Robert Rector estimating that it would cost $6.3 trillion to legalize immigrants currently living in the country unlawfully. Heritage -- under its new president, former South Carolina Republican Sen. Jim DeMint -- has worked actively to oppose the bipartisan immigration reform legislation currently pending in the Senate.

On Wednesday, the Washington Post reported that Richwine's PhD dissertation at Harvard University, published in 2009, argued that Hispanic immigrants had generally lower IQs than white Americans. On Thursday, Yahoo News revealed that Richwine had written two articles for the website AlternativeRight.com, a publication founded and run by white nationalists.